Fonts in Mint 15

[Ctulhu]

I just installed Mint 15 Cinnamon and have problems with the fonts. Firefox, LibreOffice, those are ok, but in gedit, Geany, and the terminal, the font displayed in the dropdown list of fonts (Monospace) is not the one displayed (which is some proportional font), and even if I change it to another font, the font displayed doesn't change; cf. the attachment. What can I do?

[Ctulhu]

Here is another way the problem manifests itself: look at the font sizes in the Resolution section ... Any ideas?

[Ginsu543]

That's curious. What does your Fonts settings look like? Can you go to System Tools --> System Settings --> Fonts and post a screenshot of that window?

[Ctulhu]

The font viewer showed all fonts correctly so I am not sure what was going on there. Since this was a fresh install and I hadn't yet done a lot of customizing etc., I re-installed it all and now it works fine. Weird ... Anyway, thanks for taking the time!

[Ginsu543]

Glad it all worked out for you.

[papakaz]

I seem to have a similar problem -- perhaps the exact same. I'd like to avoid a fresh install if possible -- would prefer to learn what's causing this.

So to reiterate the problem as it happens on my machine:
Various and splendid fonts work just fine in LibreOffice and web pages render quite nicely.

But the problem is the system fonts (desktop environment/window manager): I seem to have only two choices -- Droid Serif Bold Italic or Droid Serif Regular (could also be "Noto" -- I can't tell the difference). It doesn't matter if I choose any other in the configuration GUI -- my choice on GUI will show, "Elegante", "Arial", or "Monospace" for example, but the actual font used by the DE won't change from Droid Serif (the name "Elegante" will also be rendered in Droid, which also isn't supposed to happen).

It also affects the monospace font on the terminal emulators Terminator and LXterm. Xterm, however, was reconfigured by installing the package "xfonts-traditional" so it doesn't have the problem. But in the other two terminal emulators, it's still Droid, not monospace, so the characters run into each other and other unpleasant things. Also, in the Google Chrome address bar, there is one of those undecoded character boxes just after the last character in any web address.

My best guess is that the root of my problems is this: I'm now using LXDE and the Openbox Configuration Manager because I had problems with both MATE and Cinnamon (freezing). But since the switch to LXDE, if I login to MATE or Cinnamon, I have the same font problems there.

Perhaps there is a "font alias" file somewhere causing this?

I suppose I could uninstall Droid and Noto, just to see what happens -- but I don't see that fixing the problem.

Running Mint 15 (64-bit) on a relatively new (Windows 8 wiped) Toshiba Intel "Satellite" laptop with LXDE, MATE, and Cinnamon installed (would be happy just to be able to get LXDE running nicely -- the new PCmanFM is wonderful...)

[Ginsu543]

If you don't already have one, try creating a new folder called ".fonts" (without quotes) in your home directory and copying your .ttf files into it. Reboot and see if that will allow you to change your system font settings.

[papakaz]

Thank you for your attention... I copied the contents of the truetype folder (which included mostly subfolders with the font files inside them) to the new folder you suggested that I create -- rebooted. No change in the problem. CORRECTION: There is one small change -- the Google Chrome "undecoded character box" is not there anymore.

[Ginsu543]

The truetype fonts should not be in subfolders. Try moving all of them into the .fonts folder so they look something like this:

[rimg]http://imageshack.us/a/img849/3175/rath.jpg[/rimg]

[papakaz]

Thank you again for your interest and your reply. I have moved the font files from the sub-folders directly to the .fonts folder, as you advised. The problem remains the same, however.

[FireSoul]

I just installed Mint 15 Cinnamon and have problems with the fonts. Firefox, LibreOffice, those are ok, but in gedit, Geany, and the terminal, the font displayed in the dropdown list of fonts (Monospace) is not the one displayed (which is some proportional font), and even if I change it to another font, the font displayed doesn't change; cf. the attachment. What can I do?

Hello.
I'm using Mint 15 Cinnamon,but if this can help you.
Do you use Switch advanced mode as you set letters?
When you go to FONTS look what you need for.
-Default
-Document
-Monopace
-Window title
Klick them to get choose.
There can set size for fonts.
You see size as klick +,or - and close.
After this it change text for you want.

Nice time with Mint.

[kowsoleea]

I had a similar problem with the terminal font. Also my font in gedit was not monospaced.
I could not find the font "monospace" in the folder /usr/share/fonts/ and its subfolders, so I think, this may have been the problem.
I remember installing some fonts with synaptic, and maybe some fonts were masked (??) or overwritten (if this is at all possible).

For now I could resolve the problem by installing the package: fonts-ubuntu-font-family-console. I used synaptic to install it. My terminal looks fine,
and my font in gedit is monospaced again.

I hope this helps.
Regards
Ivan

[papakaz]

Thanks for the attention. I tried reinstalling the ubuntu-font-family-console. Didn't change anything.

I also added a new user to the system to ensure that it isn't a user-specific problem. The same problem happens with the new user.

My guess is that there is a config file somewhere in /etc that is doing this. I messed around with one or two of them that had to do with fonts -- actually, deleted them, just to see what would happen. But it neither solved the problem, nor did it tell me anything much because a "faulty" config file or the same config file deleted might indeed have the same results (that is to say, I might have needed to adjust something in one of the files I deleted rather than delete them). Regardless, nothing appears to have changed with the problem.

Since it is a minor annoyance (and since the other fonts work well in LibreOffice and in the web browser) I'll probably just live with it for this release cycle and do the fresh install come number 16.

...unless somebody here thinks of something brilliant before then.